Why do levels still matter so much?

Both Producer and Adventurer levels seem like a big deal.

It seems like adventurer level is the single most influential factor in determining accuracy towards and dodge rate against mobs.

Producer Level seems to impact gathering chance more than the gathering proficiency that is associated with the resource(the last 20+ levels of mining proficiency got me a 3% increase on level 5 nodes... and that's out of my total of 70% now).

For a skill based system, i don't get why the purely xp based levels are such a huge factor.

 

I'm with you. In for a penny, in for a pound. If its a skill-based system its a skill-based system, I would prefer not to know a behind-the-scenes adventurer or producer level.

However, for a trait like 'accuracy', how would you propose to calculate it otherwise when there are so many skills that might affect it?

 

I honestly thought that weapon skill, dex and armor would be the major factors. I was really surprised that level alone was bigger.

 

Hmm, I liked your last comment... but I do not like what your comment talks about. Conflicting thoughts. I believe a combination of skills and stats should make this determination.

 

I'm afraid i don't entirely understand your post - but i think we have the same general idea.

 

At least the overall levels aren't subject to decay (that i know of).

 

I worried while typing... hitting the 'like' button seems weird when I do not like the mechanic described (level impacting too much). Is that better?

 

Adventurer level is used as an adjustment to PvE fights to give you an advantage against significantly weaker monsters... or a disadvantage against significantly strong ones.

But I'm not aware that producer level is still a thing. You get a bunch of XP and it gets dumped from the pool into skills, but there is apparently no generic level that goes up. Before the skills change it was only really used to determine when you got skill points to spend.

 

I HATE LvL !!!

+1 OP Thread !!!!

 

There is still a producer level, it isnt displayed tho. Each level you gain increases gathering success by 1% for every couple of points or somethin

 

Producer Level is still displayed in V(further down the list). I'm not sure if it is a % exactly every 2, but I am sure that it accounts for a lot more of my % than my gathering proficiency.

 

Is this mechanic necessary? Shouldn't my items, stats and skills determine what is "significantly weaker" than me and what I can't face? If a troll had a ton of HP and takes a bite out of mine every hit, does it really need to dodge 90% of my attacks?

It feels to me like it is a lazy design decision that allows the devs to claim a skill-based system while getting the majority of the simplicity that a generic level system provides.

 

I agree, there must be a better way.. leveling up skills does seem to do little good compared to Adventurer Level advancement... hard to tell with the maths behind it all, but definitely seems the determining factor of my avatar is my adventurer level. I do not have a solution to this problem, just agreeing, and curious if there is a better way.

This current method DOES simplify things for the dev's I am sure.. which is good, but it does affect our ability to focus on our avatar and the skills we think we are working on, when in reality we are all watching the Adv Level rise on the 'v' screen to know how strong we really are.

 

On the other hand... having this adventurer level is also a simple way to balance our individual avatars and class/skill choices (helps to ensure an archer has a fighting chance against a mage or warrior style.. once our systems are balanced).. tho I have no idea how different two level 60 avatars can be in strength based on skill choice and builds...

 

@Chris, for the good of the game. I'm going to be very direct here.

I have concerns that people who cut their teeth on WoW and EQ are leading the design discussions.

Chris spent a good chuck of time in the telethon yesterday trying to explain why this wasn't the case - that SOTA was not WoW because it didn't give power to players on the same level curve. Which may very well be true, but that misses the point. If you're level 40 you're not capable of surviving in pvp with people that are level 70+. Therefore, you're not capable of being in pvp. I know this because I've been level 40 to 46 in a number of releases.

Chris also pointed to "personal skill" as being more of the deciding factor. But I don't think this comes from personal experience. I think instead it comes from the same people telling him the same thing every release "this is balanced and fun".

If we had a robust pvp population full of people level 40 to 50, I'd say Chris had a point. But I have yet to see any statistics to back that up. Anecdotally I have seen the exact opposite of this. People grinding their way to the 70's and then stomping anyone below them. There are outliers, people that are in the 80's and 90's that then love to point out how "balanced" the combat system is.

I continue to state that if it were so balanced then we should see more people in pvp areas that are level 40 to 50 and grinding should take a backseat to actually pvping. But not many of the "active" pvpers seem to want to have that conversation. And why would they when Chris is apparently fine with the results he's seeing?

I said during the telethon yesterday that it was becoming very frustrating to keep having this one sided conversation where Chris and a few of the higher level folks pretend everything is ok. I can't begin to guess everyone's motivation for this. I only know that it's not ok and it should be fixed for the good of the game. Level progression is fine, but the idea that someone spending an obscene amount of time killing things is somehow going to be better than everyone else at PVP, that's just poor game design. The other part of that equation that is fatally flawed is that it assumes that if you "don't put the time into leveling" you're opinion is somehow less important.

I would hope that Chris would begin to understand that people don't put the time into things when they're not fun. No one plays a game and says "well it's really fun to do this but I just think I'll skip it". The current system is rewarding people that have an odd view of what "fun" is.

 

It's also important to realize that adventure level is only DIRECTLY impacting PVE per the OP. In PVP, it's more nuanced than that, but the impact is still very VERY severe.

What Chris seemed to be pointing out in the telethon yesterday was that on a 1 to 1 skill level the power curve leveled out the higher you got. But what I didn't see discussed was how the power curve was handled across multiple skills. Specifically all the innate skills that are OFTEN (read: always) used by higher level players to augment their DPS and their defense. In other words, who gives a crap if 1 skill is on that power curve? It doesn't matter at all because the powergamers are leveling like 10 to 20 skills that collectively give them god like powers of DPS and defense.

The comparison between "levels" would only be meaningful if we were looking at someone that trained all their innates to level 100 against someone that trained them into the 40's and 50's. And that's why someone that is lower "level" can't compete with someone that is higher level. Which is a problem for anyone that hasn't spent the required 100+ hours of BORING game time required for a NORMAL person soloing in multiplayer mode without the 4x modifier to reach level 50 let alone level 70 something.

 

It is very much necessary to stop people from grinding top end mobs on day one and filling up exp pools with 100 million exp which they can then macro with a use based system while they go and have a real life picnic.

 

This is about the only part I disagree with. I haven't fought or met anyone who has an OP build that didn't know it was a broken op build. Folks really wanted to show off how broken some stuff is at the PvP event during the talk last night but no devs showed up. ( I mean seriously Air has a stun in every power AND an innate that increases stun effect, its just stun-lock-insta-death) but the guys using it know that and most wont fight in events or will not use it in events, to avoid discouraging other PvP'ers.

Also a lvl 70 can compete quite well against a lvl 92, if built properly. I don't think a lvl 50 guy should ever be able to seriously compete against a lvl 92 tho. I mean to get to 92 its not just your ADV level going up. That's another 40+ levels of that person using skills and leveling them up. A lvl 92 should stomp a lvl 50, but have no desire to!


We need someway to measure our progression. I need a metric to check and use for all my little "back of the envelope" calculations I'm doing while going thru my skill tree.

 

This! Totally this!! Couldn't agree more.

The AFK macro thing drives me nuts. I play, I dunno, 27hrs a day or something, and if you mssg me in-game I'm gonna reply (unless I have to pee ).
I don't mind if someone wants to go build a 100mil pool, and go out and ACTUALLY uses it. The AFK-macro-gust is BS tho.

 

I have been killing the air build mages using smelling salts. If i don't have smelling salts however.. ouch.